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Development and Planning

Image: The previous plan for Building A, which was to include a hotel and to be 10 stories

Plans to put an upscale boutique hotel in “Building A”—the building PDIG is proposing to erect at the corner of Abbot Road and Grand River Avenue—have fallen through. PDIG has informed the Downtown Development Authority there will be no hotel after all—and the building will be eight stories rather than ten.

Image: The Avondale Square development, where the City continues to own many parcels; courtesy City of East Lansing

At next Tuesday’s City Council work session, City staff is planning to ask Council to put a City Charter amendment on the ballot for May 5 that would change how City land is sold. (Like all “work sessions,” this public meeting of City Council will not be broadcast or video recorded for accessible public viewing.)

East Lansing’s public parking system is consistently a money-loser; the City’s large unfunded retiree liabilities are about to become more visible; and property taxes are going up. These were three of the major issues covered last night at City Council during discussion of a report on the City’s finances.

In a long and contentious Council meeting tonight, Mayor Nathan Triplett, Mayor Pro Tem Diane Goddeeris, and Council member Susan Woods effectively voted to close the Bailey daycare and also the Bailey Community Center in June of this year.

Image: Bailey daycare parents' Working Group member Charles Hoogstraten speaks to Council late last year

Former East Lansing mayor Douglas Jester is urging City Council to vote tomorrow night to save the Bailey daycare. In a letter to Council that he has shared with ELi, Jester asks Council “to assist the parents who are attempting to establish a non-profit corporation to operate the program, and to undertake a community process to decide the future of the Bailey Community Center.”

Councilmember Ruth Beier is set tomorrow to make the following motion at Council:

City staff are moving to get a East Lansing City Charter amendment on the ballot for May 5 that would change how some public land sales happen—taking the power from the ballot box and giving it to a simple majority of City Council.

At City Council this week, City Manager George Lahanas told Council the current Charter provision is outdated and restrictive.

Image: The corner where PDIG seeks to construct the 10-story "Building A"

The East Lansing Downtown Development Authority (DDA) is moving forward on controversial developer PDIG’s plans for the blighted area downtown. Two major buildings in the area are now estimated together to cost $101 million, and local government is considering $32 million in tax incentives for the project area. At a public DDA meeting yesterday, details emerged on the Tax Increment Financing plan as well as the development agreement being made between the developer and the City.

Local developer DTN Management is set to present a new plan for the empty lot at the northwest corner of West Grand River Avenue and Delta Street, next to the West Village Condos. The empty lot is shown above; to the west are the West Village townhouses, and to the north, Valley Court Park.

City Council is now set to decide the fate of the Bailey childcare program and the Bailey Community Center next Tuesday. Members of the Bailey neighborhood told Council last night that this means they are essentially also deciding the fate of the Bailey neighborhood itself.

The battle over the future of the Bailey Community Center—and, according to some residents, the future of the Bailey neighborhood itself—will continue tomorrow night at City Council during a work session that will not be broadcast for public viewing. On one side is City staff who see the costs of keeping open the Community Center and the daycare it houses as simply too high for citizens to bear.